179 Responses

Joe, I don't understand your point. You ask for examples of leaving it to someone else not working, the provide an example of direct action working. Or do you mean that the great majority of people left it to someone else and got a good outcome anyway?

The latter. I took your mention of "leaving it to someone else" to mean resolving local race relations issues. I clearly remember He Taua's attack on the haka party as an event of real significance, and my feelings now are the same as they were then - came the bloody dawn. I think it's a prime example of Maori succeeding in the absence of overt Pakeha goodwill.

I think it would have been cool if, say, the Maori Law Students Society had held an event for M&S at Waipapa, the Auckland Uni marae. After all, that was where Hana Jackson said "Kill a white and die a hero" back in 1988 (I was there at the time).

The sheer amount of ideological jiu-jitsu and outright irony would have been breath-taking, especially if Molyneux tried to undertake an cultural assassination like he did in in Australia.

The sheer amount of ideological jiu-jitsu and outright irony would have been breath-taking, especially if Molyneux tried to undertake an cultural assassination like he did in in Australia.

The thing is, people like this do take that opportunity. Gavin Menzies (author of “1421: The Year China Discovered the World”) gave a talk in Auckland and reiterated his belief that Māori are, in fact, the offspring of Chinese sailors and Melanesian slaves. He was challenged on this by Māori at the talk and his response was to claim that a) they were talking nonsense, b) they did not know their own history, and c) they were just trying to shut him down. It’s very easy to tell people they are wrong when they are not your intended audience.

The end game for the Nazis is they kill everybody who isn't them. That's why they're into this whole "we're the real victim and everyone else is out to get us" thing. It's to justify their fantasy of a world wide genocidal race war they plan to win.

Telling those people to fuck off is just entirely sensible. Their fantasy is not just stupid, it's extremely dangerous when legitimised in any way. It took fifty million dead to stop them last time they controlled one country. Fuck those guys. I mean, hugs and stuff, peace is good, but not speaking venues for that.

Sounds like the standard hegemonic response to be honest, less #givenothingtoracism, more #givesomethingstoracism. One comes to expect and anticipate this as a minority, this fanciful notion of the “tolerable bigot” – bad enough that those impacted complain but not so bad that the hegemony are prepared to meaningfully resist them.

The focus of Gallavin appears very much on the immediate present:

What that may mean for universities is that we need to hire more security, liaise with police and our community more to ensure legitimate protest occurs in a way that is safe and sane.

Showing scant concern whatsoever for the fallout i.e. normalisation of the tolerable bigot, experienced as microaggressions and worse by minorities every day.

Members of the hegemony advocate in this way regularly; “why are you concerned by [insert name of tolerable/ redeemed bigot] when [currently less favoured bigot] is soooo much worse”

As if Aotearoa should reserve a clean seat for those – who while not advocating actual genocide – peddle views that continue to marginalise, defame and divisively malign tangata whenua.

I’m glad Jan has a lower tolerance than you for bigots with these types of attitudes; for the bigots that profit from these views:

"You have a situation where a relatively primitive culture, where education has not been valued, has traditionally produced large numbers of people in relatively low-paid jobs.” (Metro magazine Apr 2004)

So not in favour of the tolerable bigot being deplatformed but also not in favour of those who are deplatformed employing legal counsel to disincentivise deplatforming? Would that be a fair assessment?

I think you’ll find those views are and have been on a fairly constant trajectory for quite some time and that it’s RNZ and TV3 who have been maintaining the normalisation of those views by retaining Don Brash as the go-to to bigot on all manner of topics related to Māori.

Question I have is where do you personally draw the line, would you hold the same position if it had been Graham Capill who’d been deplatformed?

The reason i ask is that I’m unable to ascertain is whether your support for Brash is a product of internalised racism or you’re ok with open access for all types of toxicity.

That’s a former leader of the National Party you’re trying to cut out of New Zealand’s political life, Mark. There’s more going on here than I can comment on directly but I couldn’t be more opposed to what you’re doing.

That’s a former leader of the National Party you’re trying to cut out of New Zealand’s political life, Mark.

When Jim Mclay becomes the go-to provocateur employed by media on topics related to Māori then that could almost be relevant. Is your intent to suggest that a racist is ok to continue to mainstream if they’ve held a high profile political position?

Brash is just another racist Pākehā as far as I’m concerned, laud him as is your bent of course.

As much as I warm to the idea, I don’t see myself being able to cut Don Brash out of political life by any stretch.

I'm in full support of Mark Taslov's comments. The logical confusion of those who say we have promoted Brash by opposing him reminds me of the logic of those appeasing Hitler (yes I know, Godwin's Rule).

1. to bear or hold up (a load, mass, structure, part, etc.); serve as a foundation for.2. to sustain or withstand (weight, pressure, strain, etc.) without giving way; serve as a prop for.3. to undergo or endure, especially with patience or submission; t̲o̲l̲e̲r̲a̲t̲e̲.

as I felt if I'd gone with something like “giving Don Brash and his views the biggest boost since he left Parliament” it would have overstated things by some considerable degree. But if, big if here, I were to throw that kind of superlative around I’d probably reserve it for someone like Garner or Hill.

Such technical differentiation, John, seems disingenuous. They were invited here by the FSC to do a public talk. The venue operator cancelled it. Now the same stunt has been pulled on Brash by a different venue operator, people are starting to wise up to what's going on. Deliberate attempts to eliminate free speech using feeble excuses or fake evidence of threats to public safety.

Plus a subgroup of leftists addicted to hate speech who are trying to distract attention from their misbehaviour by claiming that rightists are using hate speech. "Not me, officer" said the offender "it was that guy over there!" Pathetic.